Sunday, November 25, 2007
Chapter 5- End: What's up with the smash up?
Post your responses to the final chapters of Ethan Frome here. So, the inevitable question: what did you think of the ending? Did you see some kind of ironic justice in the conclusion or feel sympathy for the plight of Ethan Frome? How is the theme of passion vs. responsibility developed? What internal and external conflicts does Ethan face? Were there other alternatives to the sled ride of death? What has happened to Mattie and Zeena at the end (physically and mentally)? What role reversals did you observe? Why did these occur? How does this ending revise the fairy tale? What statement does Wharton make about life in general (and especially life for women) during this time period? Were you more surprised by this ending or Of Mice and Men? What novel from this year gets your vote for Most Shocking Ending? What is the main theme/message of the novel? What are readers to take away from the book? (Besides to avoid large trees when sledding.) As always, feel free to respond to any of the above questions or include your own insights, questions for the class, and interpretations.
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20 comments:
Not a big fan of the anti-climactic ending of the novel. I wish it would have just said what happened to Mattie in the first place rather than waiting for the description of everyone in the house. I also wish that Ethan and Mattie would have gotten up the guts to move away together because they were much happier together than Ethan and Zeena were. The end is also kind of punishment for both Mattie and Ethan in that Ethan can no longer connect with Mattie and that Mattie cannot even move herself. This also leaves Ethan to live a life of punishment through the two woment arguing constantly.
Ethan is said to have been a strong person physically, but inwardly he was weak. I don't think Ethan knew how to handle his conflicts as well as he wanted to. He wanted to leave Zeena and marry Mattie, but his poverty and loyalty to Zeena stopped him. The only thing he did decide on was to go suicide sledding with Mattie and even at that moment he let go of the controls of his life. I felt bad for Ethan. A person can only take so much bad news, and Ethan has had it all his life. As for the sledding issue...Maybe it is because back then going 10 mph was like going in hyper speed, but i thought it was desperate and silly way to die, but in a cute/romantic way. Ethan and Mattie did not deserve their ending state. They tried so hard to get away. They even went to the extreme of kamakazi sledding. Zeena deserves what she got however. I think she was faking her "illness" the whole time, and all of a sudden when her husband is sick and can't provide for her she is well. Whoa! What a coincidince. Anyway I rate this ending an 8. Zeena should have died. Of Mice and Men was more shocking to me, however lacked in the romance. So I give it a 9.
I thought the ending was terrible! I wanted Mattie and Ethan to run off together, not to try and commit suicide by running into an Elm! And then Mattie turns all gray and old. This ending surprised me a little more than Of Mice or Men did. Is it ever clear in the novel that Zeena knows the compassion Ethan feels for Mattie, and I just missed it? Ethan is kind of punished in the end because now he has to live with the two old, bickering ladies. I feel bad for Ethan, and Zeena still angers me. Over all I liked the book but was very disappointed in the ending.
I was very surprised at the ending of Ethan Frome. I thought it was ironic how at the end Zeena was the one who was taking care of Mattie and Ethan, when during the story she was the character who was always sick and couldn't even care for herself. It seems as if Zeena and Mattie switch roles at the end because Mattie is now the one who complains and is always asking for help. The ending also goes to show that one should always be careful of what he or she wishes for because as in the case of Mattie, she wishes that she was dead and then ends up being paralyzed from her attempt to fulfill her wish. For Mattie, in reality, being dead probably would be better than being miserable and helpless for twenty years under Zeena's care.
I wasn't a very big fan of the ending either. It wasn't really what I was expecting. The story was building me up and up and when the end finally came it was kind of a dissapointment. In some ways I feel bad for Ethan, I wanted he and Mattie to run away together. I thought it was cute how they wanted to die together so they didn't have to depart but I didn't like it because that meant they were ending their life. I feel bad for him because his wife doesn't treat him very well and that he longs for Mattie but he can't have her. But I am also mad at his wife because she is always sick and pretending like she needs everything done for her but when Ethan is in need of her aid, she is perfectly well. I did like in this story, the vivid detail and expression but i was hoping for a better ending.
I just finished the book and im going to say that the ending was a little dull for me. I agree with Chelsea that Ethan is very internally weak and he is therefore facing the consequences for his actions. I wish that Ethan and Mattie would have just built up the courage in the first place to run away and live a happy life. Instead, the two of them tried to end their lives together and it just made things worse. Mattie and Ethan's attempts of suicidecan be related to many situations today in which one decision can completely ulter the rest of your life. Because of these twos poor decision, they are both left crippled and ironically taken care of by the women who they used to tend to. I look at the sled situation as Ethan forfeits his ability to steer the sled, just as he forefeits the ability to make good decisions in life. The book was very good but i think it could be even better with an alternate ending.
I thought the ending was very ironic as well and I wasn't expecting mattie to act so different. She has become what Zeena used to be, a whiner and cripple, while Zeena's health is restored and she is now in charge of tending to Mattie's needs. I thought that the manner in which Ethan and Mattie tried to kill themselves was another example of each one's inability to control their own lives. By sledding down the hill in the darkness, Ethan and Mattie put their lives in the hands of fate and are sadly punished in a sense for their forbidden love for one another. I wish Ethan would have possessed the courage to escape with Mattie, but unfortunately he lets his worries over finances interfere with making his dream escape from Starkfield. As a result of his cowardice, Ethan is trapped in Starkfield forever and his ultimate fears of living with Zeena for the rest of his life become a despairing reality.
At the end of the novel Mattie and Zeena are very similar, both old, gray, and extremely feeble. Mattie and Zeena actually almost switch places because now Zeena cares for the three of them, whereas at the beginning Mattie was the caretaker. I was actually more surprised with this ending because I expected more of a classic fairytale ending where Mattie and Ethan would be able to live happily ever after together, and I did not expect Mattie to become this way at all. I actually see ironic justice served, but I also feel sympathy for him. He never truly loved Zeena, but yet he did choose to ask her to marry him and that was his fault. However, for some odd reason I feel sympathetic toward him because he was unable to be with the one he truly loved, but I guess it's his own fault. In conslusion, I did not like the ending at all. I just found the whole running into a tree with a sled kind of..stupid. This book was overall, okay.
It seems Ethan is constantly in indecision. this ultimately causes him to suffer a fate worse then if he had chosen either way. If he had crashed head on he would have died.
if he would have swerved away he could have survived with either Zeena or Mattie. Instead he is stuck with both of them in his own personal hell
This novel wins the prize for the lamest ending ever. The story built up and then just burned out. I was very disappointed with the ending. Zeena has now become the strong one, taking care of Mattie and Ethan. Zeena, who was going to die and needed a hired girl to do everything for her. Mattie is now the one in need of constant care and is the weak one. Responsibility won out this time for sure. There is no passion left between a crippled Ethan and Mattie, especially with Zeena and Mattie sitting around arguing all the time. I was expecting the big elm tree to come into play, but I expected Mattie to die. I knew Zeena would live, since the evil people always seem to keep going to make others miserable, differing from what happens in fairy tales. It was a very disappointing ending.
Wow, this truly is a warped fairy tale! While in most fairy tales good triumphs over evil and the prince and princess live happily, in this one the witch wins. It is ironic that Zeena, who is used to having everyone do everything for her, now is the caretaker. Also, it seems more than a coincidence that she just happened to get better when Ethan and Zeena got hurt. The ending is depressing in that Mattie becomes a whining nag just like Zeena. Perhaps if Ethan could have made a decision for once he would have avoided this situation by either simply dying or running away with Mattie and living happily. It also would have helped if Ethan was able to stand up to Zeena but unfortunately he is too weak of a person to do so.
If Ethan disliked Zeena so much why didn't he just divorce her. I didn't like the ending at all. I think that instead of trying to commit suicide Ethan and Mattie should have just ran away together to a different town. Eventhough Ethan was complaining about his money issues, I don't think a suicide attempt was the best choice of action. By trying to commit suicide all Ethan and Mattie ended up doing was make their life worse off now than it was before. Now they are both disabled and Ethan is disfigured.
I dislike the character Zeena. She "says" she has an illness and she exaggerates it. She uses her illness to get the upper-hand in her and Ethan's marriage. She always complains about Mattie and wanting to get rid of her. What gets me is when Mattie gets injured, Zeena takes care of her and ends of living together the rest of the time. When the dish breaks that gives her another reason to get rid of Mattie. The broken dish represents the broken marriage between her and Ethan. Mattie being the one that broke both. Zeena cries over the dish because she cannot openly mourn her own destroyed marriage. Ethan's character is shy, a bad liar, and he doesn't have the courage to get what his heart desires. He wants Mattie but the obstical between them is Zeena. Only towards the end of the novel, did Ethan finally express is affection to Mattie and kiss her. But when Ethan dreams of running away with Mattie and getting money from Mr. Hale, he throws out that dream because of his situation with his farm. Ethan is living in a prison. The farm work comes between his relationship with Mattie, and Zeena has her anger to control him. Ethan has an interal conflict between what his heart desires and social morals. He wants to run away with Mattie and love her but he knows that he needs to stay and take care of his farm. The end of the novel was shocking. I figured when they went down the hill toward the big elm, they were not coming back. But the we find out that they both lived! And what's more funny is Ethan, Zeena, and Mattie are all living together again!
I personally didnt like the ending all that much. I expected something more happy than them trying to kill themselves. I would've liked to see Ethan and Mattie run away together because i think their lives would be much happier than they are with Zeena. I agree that the ending serves as somewhat of a punishment for Ethan because he has to live with the two woman arguing and fighting constantly.
I was kind of angry at the ending. It was really stupid how Ethan and Mattie just decided to kill themselves by hitting a tree. Did they honestly think that was going to work? If they wanted to die together, they should've done something more likely to work, like in Romeo and Juliet. The way they chose was stupid because Mattie just ended up being paralyzed, and her and Ethan didn't even end up together anyways. I wish that they would've chosen to run off together. It would've been a much cuter ending to the novel. I didn't like the ending at all. It built up to this huge scene with a suicide attempt, and then just dropped off into a boring and stupid conclusion. They should've just chosen to live and be together.
ha ha i was right they do try to kill themselves how did i know. the warped fairytale got me thinking that instead of happily ever after they would be happy in a sense they were together but in a dark twisted way, like the ending of this book. its ironic that zeena is to take care of them now since ethan was always providing for her and taking care of her and now she takes care of them. i liked this book it was one of my favorites and it a good quick read. the sleigh part was kind of romantic in a way that he was supposed to take her but he coudlnt cuz it was so dark and then like the ideal ending for their suicide would be like them dying together happily on something they both wanted but the smash up, why oh why. i liked the ending in that it was dark and was trying to be romantic but was turned so upside down.
The ending was actually boring. I think there could have been a better way of dealing with his problems than the sled ride of death. He could of told his wife how he felt,gotten someone to take care of her,gotten a new job, and lived a happy life with Mattie. However, Ethan's struggle with responsibiltiy and passion tore him in both ways. He mostly choose to stay with his wife because he knew that he couldn't leave her alone but he still had that little bit of passion burning to come out from within and take Mattie. Personally I think the most shocking ending has to be "Of Mice and Men" but I still love HuckFinn!
I called it! I knew that ethan and Mattie would run into the tree. i just didnt think Mattie would survive. Overall, I loved this book. It was a fast read and it was really interesting. I saw a role reversal between Mattie and Zena. Mattie became the sick, bitter one, and Zena became upbeat. I think that Ethan should have just stood up against Zena and Said Mattie is staying, we aern't sending her away. Instead, he let Zena have her way by sending Mattie away. Personally, I think there were other things they could have done than commit suicide.
Well, I really dislike this novel. Not only was the novel rather uneventful, the ending, well it just sucked. I also didn't like the whole "I love my wife's cousin" thing. If I were Zeena, and I knew my husband was running around with my cousin, my actions would probably break the law. The ending was shocking, but only because the rest of the book was so boring. I do not think I have fallen asleep while reading a book more than I did with this one.
On the other hand, Mice and Men was good. I thought the story was easier to picture and the ending very surprising.
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